View of the new Guangdong Museum

On the morning of July 20th, Xiao Qialong, director of the Guangdong Museum invited some media reporters to the new museum site and briefed them on the latest information of the project. The buildings and display facilities of the nearly RMB 900 million project would be completed by April 2008. After a two-month trial operation, the museum was to be formally opened to the public in June of next year.

As of June this year, 70% of the new museum buildings have been completed. Those undergoing various construction works would be completed within this year. For the display facilities, the designing work is now being carried out and its construction would begin in August.

"According to the previous plan, the museum was to be completed within this year. Now the time has been postponed to April 2008 and the museum would open in June. Due to some modifications of the plan and other reasons, the adjustment of the timetable was made to ensure the quality of the project," Director Xiao explained the reasons for the extension.

After the Wenchuan earthquake, seismic capacity of the new museum became the focus of the attention of the masses. Earthquake resistance was an important design element for the project, disclosed by Chen Xuanzhong, construction deputy director. The new Museum can resist an earthquake of eight to nine on the Richter scale.

The new Guangdong Museum is one of the "ten works" of Guangdong Province and one of its three landmark cultural facilities. Located at Block J5 near Xiancun Road and Linjiang Road, the museum covers an area of 41,027 square meters. With a construction area of 17,500 square meters and a usable area of 14,000 square meters, the RMB 884.2-million project was solely invested by the Provincial Department of Finance.

Editor: Yan